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Surviving the Snowpocalypse

February 10, 2011

Perhaps you might have noticed that there’s some snow outside. A lot of snow. Giant heaping piles of snow. Spectacular accumulations of microcrystalline dihydrogen monoxide. Yes, we had a blizzard recently, and I'm not talking about the delicious frozen treat from Dairy Queen.

In this age of social media and 24-hour Action News hyperbole, we couldn’t just call it something lame like a snowstorm or a blizzard. No, this blizzard was EXTREME and EPIC and needed a fitting name like the Snowpocalypse, Snowmaggedon, Snownami, Snowtorius B.I.G., or Flurricane Katrina. The recent snowstorm even endowed the English language with a new word, snowbooking: meaning to post on Facebook constantly during a snowstorm, mostly about the snowstorm.

Taking Kansas City International Airport as our representative for the whole metro area, we find that our year-to-date snowfall is 30.2 inches. Compare this to an average of 13.5 inches, and we can definitely say we're not having an average winter!

But, let’s put our snow woes into perspective. The highest recorded annual snowfall at the Paradise Lodge at Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state is a whopping 1122 inches. The greatest single calendar day snowfall in US history occurred on December 14, 1921 in Georgetown, Colorado. On that fateful day, 63 inches of snow fell. But for a true Snowpocalypse, consider the April 1921 snowstorm that dropped 95 inches in a day and a half at Silver Lake, Colorado. These snowfalls make our recent weather look like "snow big deal."

One wonders what the next big winter weather event will be called. Perhaps "the Snocano." How about "the Earthflake?" Oh, I know…"SNOMG!"